Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

Chinese Fortune-Tellers
We make Chinese Fortune Tellers at school. In all the little compartments you can put in 
fortunes, like dirty ones, stupid ones, good ones, and a lot about the boys. They are fun 
because you can usually use them during the day when the teacher isn’t looking. We don’t 
really
believe in the fortunes, except when they say something really good. But sometimes 
it comes true. I guess it just depends what colors and numbers you pick.
This description of the paper toys that kids usually call 
fortune-tellers
or 
coo-
tie catchers
came from 13-year-old Maureen, whose family heritage was Irish 
American, in Mahopac, New York, in April 1987. The eight fortunes inside her 
fortune-teller were “Boys think you’re pretty,” “You won’t get married,” “You’re a 
good best friend,” “Tommy likes you,” “You smell,” “You’re nice,” “You’ll get mar-
ried at 23,” and “You will marry Michael.” As in many jump-rope and autograph 
rhymes of this era, the main topics are courtship and marriage.

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Examples and Texts 95
Good and Bad Fortunes
1. You will go on a dayt with a famis person.
2. You will barff.
3. You will get $11,000.
4. You will lose all your money.
5. You will find a gold mind [
sic
].
6. You will lose your hair.
7. You will not get canser.
8. You will start to smoke because somewan corses you.
Folklorist Janet Gilmore found these fortunes inside a paper fortune-teller on 
the playground of the former third- to sixth-grade school building in Mt. Horeb, 
Wisconsin, between 1998 and 2001. This set of fortunes consists of four pairs, 
each of which has one good fortune and one disastrous one. While one fortune 
predicts a date, the other seven foretell events related to money, hair, smoking, and 
disease rather than romance: a shift away from the love divination of earlier years.
Snow Fort
There are two ways of making a snow fort in the winter time, depending on the snow. 
If the snow has a crust you stamp out a circle with your feet, then lift it up. If it’s too 
big it will break. You can stand the crusts on end and cement it together with the snow 
underneath. The other way is to roll up the snow in balls if the snow is wetter, but it isn’t 
as much fun because it’s harder and you can’t make a roof.
Amelia, age nine, explained how to build a snow fort in Middletown, Con-
necticut, in the fall of 1977. As the above text shows, children learn specific skills 
for constructing snow forts or shelters. Amelia distinguishes between the easier, 
more pleasant method that works for snow with a crust and the harder, less enjoy-
able technique that suits wet snow. Since her hometown in Connecticut usually 
gets a fair amount of snow during the winter, snow craftsmanship there has devel-
oped well-defined rules. For more information on children’s snow craftsmanship, 
see Bronner (206 –11).